Data I/O Unisites

ieure

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Anyone else rocking one of these? Seems like they're starting to hit the surplus market, but haven't shot up in value like I've seen with the 29B. A friend of mine picked one up at auction for cheap, and I recently found four of them. I bought two of those, and they're awesome. After years of looking, I still don't have all the adapters I want for the 29B, but these do just about everything right out of the box and are less expensive to boot. They were supported until 2007, so the software situation is a lot better than the 29B. There's a text-graphical UI you can use over a serial port, or TaskLink software for Windows.

One of mine is an earlier model with 4mb RAM expansion, and 12 pin driver boards. It fired right up after I cleaned all the dust bunnies out of the floppy drives. I made some v9.2 disks for it, and it seems to work good.

I got Site48 and SetSite modules, which are the only ones I care about. Unfortunately, only one of each, so not enough for both programmers to be fully functional.

The other is a later model with second rev PCB, 8mb RAM, 17 pin drivers, and mass storage module. It was throwing a RAM error in selftest, but reseating the SIMMs cured it. I think this one is my keeper, the mass storage is more convenient than using floppies. It's all working, but I'm replacing the micro HDD with flash memory, which is on the slow boat. I think after that, this is going to be my default programmer, replacing the 29B and GQ-4x4, but for exceptional cases.

Anyone else using these beasts?
 
Anyone else rocking one of these? Seems like they're starting to hit the surplus market, but haven't shot up in value like I've seen with the 29B. A friend of mine picked one up at auction for cheap, and I recently found four of them. I bought two of those, and they're awesome. After years of looking, I still don't have all the adapters I want for the 29B, but these do just about everything right out of the box and are less expensive to boot. They were supported until 2007, so the software situation is a lot better than the 29B. There's a text-graphical UI you can use over a serial port, or TaskLink software for Windows.

One of mine is an earlier model with 4mb RAM expansion, and 12 pin driver boards. It fired right up after I cleaned all the dust bunnies out of the floppy drives. I made some v9.2 disks for it, and it seems to work good.

I got Site48 and SetSite modules, which are the only ones I care about. Unfortunately, only one of each, so not enough for both programmers to be fully functional.

The other is a later model with second rev PCB, 8mb RAM, 17 pin drivers, and mass storage module. It was throwing a RAM error in selftest, but reseating the SIMMs cured it. I think this one is my keeper, the mass storage is more convenient than using floppies. It's all working, but I'm replacing the micro HDD with flash memory, which is on the slow boat. I think after that, this is going to be my default programmer, replacing the 29B and GQ-4x4, but for exceptional cases.

Anyone else using these beasts?

Yeah, I picked one up over a decade ago for a decent price. A very versatile programmer! I lucked out and got a fully-kitted out model with MSM. Had I been forced to use floppies, I think my patience would have ran out a long time ago. FWIW, there is guy on the Data_IO_EPROM Yahoo group that sells an unpopulated repro of the MSM PCB.

Download speeds via the serial link are dreadful but if you have an MSM you can easily fit a parallel port, which makes a tremendous improvement. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get the parallel interface working since I switched from an XP to a Vista-based PC for my legacy stuff.

Loads of info here, including the parallel port mod:
http://www.pestingers.net/pages-images/electronics-other/data-io/unisite/data-io-unisite.htm
 
Yeah, I picked one up over a decade ago for a decent price. A very versatile programmer! I lucked out and got a fully-kitted out model with MSM. Had I been forced to use floppies, I think my patience would have ran out a long time ago. FWIW, there is guy on the Data_IO_EPROM Yahoo group that sells an unpopulated repro of the MSM PCB.

Download speeds via the serial link are dreadful but if you have an MSM you can easily fit a parallel port, which makes a tremendous improvement. Unfortunately I haven't been able to get the parallel interface working since I switched from an XP to a Vista-based PC for my legacy stuff.

Loads of info here, including the parallel port mod:
http://www.pestingers.net/pages-images/electronics-other/data-io/unisite/data-io-unisite.htm

I don't think I can fit the MSM to the early model with the RAM expansion, or at least, I think I have to forego the extra memory, which makes it much less useful.

I saw the parallel mod, not sure if I'm going to bother or not. I could never get the 29B working reliably above 9600 baud, so even going to 19200bps is a big jump. And most of the images I need to deal with are small. Also, you can stick 'em on a disk instead of downloading over serial, if you're working with the same boards over and over.
 
I don't think I can fit the MSM to the early model with the RAM expansion, or at least, I think I have to forego the extra memory, which makes it much less useful.

I saw the parallel mod, not sure if I'm going to bother or not. I could never get the 29B working reliably above 9600 baud, so even going to 19200bps is a big jump. And most of the images I need to deal with are small. Also, you can stick 'em on a disk instead of downloading over serial, if you're working with the same boards over and over.

Fair enough. My use case is a little unusual in that I tend to primarily read devices. Having the parallel port helps as the high-speed serial download mode only works for transfers to the Unisite and not to the host.
 
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I have Unisite with version 7.6 of the software.
Please tell me how to erase a GAL16V8.
I keep getting device does not support erase.
using a Lattice GAL16V8D-15LP
Also same for NS 16V8
Both erase just fine with my Lab Tool programmer

Thanks
 
I have Unisite with version 7.6 of the software.
Please tell me how to erase a GAL16V8.
I keep getting device does not support erase.
using a Lattice GAL16V8D-15LP
Also same for NS 16V8
Both erase just fine with my Lab Tool programmer

Have you tried disabling 'Electronic ID Checking'? (Setup->Programmer Properties->General)
 
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